Friday, 23 January 2015

And . . . relax

As another week draws to a close, I have a chance to reflect on the good, the bad and the ugly.

Work has been work. Most troopers will have had the call from their manager, and some will be delighted, and some will not, though, perhaps surprisingly, those not delighted will not all be in the thumbs up camp; some were hoping for a thumbs down, and will not have got it. Such is the nature of the modern business, and the trooper morale within, that all combinations exist; for those that want to go, some will and some won't, and likewise for those that don't want to go, some will and some won't.

At home, we have some sickness in Maggot 2, this one with a fever, which has brought on the usual round of disturbing hallucinations, of which there were two during last night, when he was worried about the boat sinking, and wanted to cuddle very close to me*. They last around fifteen long minutes, and involve a lot of clawing and pointing and sudden moments of fear.
The remedy for this is, as any parent knows, Calpol or Neurofen, or sometimes both alternately. Their magical properties never cease to amaze me.

Maggot 1 is growing up alarmingly, and is entering the phase when talking to parents is just sooooooooo tedious. I guess that is us stuck for the next five years then.

The weekend is clear, which is just what we need. Likely there will be no football for Maggot 2, so just tennis for 1, and otherwise we can suit ourselves. My primary goal is to have some time reading in our new chairs in the library.

One final piece of trivia. One of my podcasts is Freakanomics, "the hidden side of everything", or more precisely, how data can answer the most unusual of questions. This week's topic was around why people say "That is a very good question". At one point, the host was discussing what we had learnt with his co-host, and he asked whether the co-host ever had one of those moments where someone has just said something that you know for sure needs a response, but you just did not hear what they said, and do not want to cause a scene by asking again. The solution to this dilemma is to to say back, and I am writing this phonetically since it is a word that does not seem to exist:

rebus-a-cas-a-fram

Bizarre as it sounds, apparently most people, when hearing those sounds, will hear the answer they want to hear. I hope to test this over the next few days, and will let you know what I find.

I hope you have a great weekend, and speak next week.

========================
* A sure sign of illness is when he prefers me to his mother